1. Field of the Invention.
This invention concerns broadly coloring materials for the production of color compositions such as paintings and other works, and more particularly is concerned with a basic color media set including color charts and premixed coloring materials to enable the ready preparation of a full spectrum of properly toned palettes.
2. Description of the prior art.
In the rendering of paintings and other works involving color composition, the artist or colorist is generally concerned with producing compositions which are pleasing to the eye, and in many instances he also may be concerned with reproducing a natural scene. The use of coloring materials towards this end is difficult, since many complex and subtle factors are involved in producing such a work which is natural and pleasing to the eye. These include optical factors, i.e., those relating to the nature of light and its properties in the context of color, and also visual or perceptive factors relating to the functioning of the eye and the associated brain centers.
As to what is pleasing to the eye, it has been found that simply using masses of bright and contrasting color does not produce an effective color work, since any attempt to assault the eye with color generally results in a reaction of the visual-perceptive faculty tending to reduce the contrast and brilliance, and such a work is lacking in appeal.
Color appeal is produced by a number of factors, some of which relate to certain subtle enhancement effects of the eye when viewing color areas. When these enhancements are created, the result is a more eye-pleasing composition.
A well known example of these factors is the interaction occurring upon juxtaposition of areas of complementary colors. Complementary colors are those colors which when blended together tend to neutralize each other and produce a white light, in the context of an additive process, i.e., a process in which colored lights are combined. In the context of a subtractive process, these colors will produce gray tones, subtractive processes being those coloring processes involving combinations of materials each of which selectively absorbs particular wave lengths of color of light, to thus exhibit a characteristic of the remaining reflected colors.
In these situations where complementary colors are juxtaposed, the eye-brain perceptive faculty tends to attempt to combine the colors, which attempt enhances the brilliance of the colors, and produces an interest or appeal to the eye. This interest has been termed "visual entertainment".
Another such factor is that involving the juxtaposition of areas of contrasting brightness or "value", value being the characteristic of a surface which controls the relative intensity of light reflected from the surface. In those instances where areas of equal value or of similar value but different color are juxtaposed, the eye tends to seek a value contrast, and where it does not exist, the eye again tends to enhance the color difference between the juxtaposed areas so that areas of similar value tend to exhibit enhanced color brilliance. This effect also tends to produce a pleasing effect in the resulting color composition.
Another such "visual entertainment" phenomenon is concerned with the tendency of the visual perceptive faculty to produce the complementary of a color when a strong color is viewed, which effect can be readily produced when the light with which a scene is illuminated is strongly colored. An example of this latter visual phenomenon is the oft-cited example of the effect of viewing a winter scene in a twilight lighting. The scene appears entirely gray, but upon lighting within of an incandescent-type lamp having an orange tone, the viewed outside scene tends to be imbued with a bluish cast which is the complementary color of the incandescent orange-toned light. Thus, if a scene is rendered in a color composition with an overall dominant color, its complementaries tend to glow in this context due to the enhancement thereof by the described visual factor.
Such a color dominance in a scene may come about in a natural scene in the hue of the illumination of the scene, as described. This fact involves an example of an optical factor which must be considered by the colorist. The color of an object is produced by its selective reflectivity, that is certain wave lengths are reflected while others are absorbed. Those that are reflected give the object its characteristic color. Obviously the color of the illuminating light will have some influence on the color of the object, since the nature of the reflected light will vary with the wave lengths of the illuminating beam.
On the whole, this is what produces a "tonal" influence i.e., the bathing of a scene in a deeply red illumination, such as occurs in certain sunset conditions will modify the colors perceived in a scene from those colors which will be observed in the full daylight, i.e., greens will be grayed, etc. Since most scenes are viewed under the influence of a characteristically colored illuminating light, natural scene colors, as viewed in the scene, are thus toned and all of the colors of the spectrum (and combinations thereof) which should chance appear in that scene would be somewhat modified from their appearance under pure white light. This modification would involve the purely optical factor referred to, in that a definite toning will take place under illumination by a particular color which will tend to consistently shift each of the spectral colors in a definite way. It is this consistency of colors appearing in a natural scene which must be reproduced by the artist if the scene is to appear natural in his rendition of the same.
Thus, most successful art work by experienced and talented painters has involved a selection of colors in a rendering of a scene or a painting or a similar work which are actually related by this tonal influence, the resulting tonal dominance also tending to enhance the visual entertainment provided by the color composition, so that such a work both appears more natural and also is much more pleasing to the eye. These factors, of course, are not readily appreciated or understood by beginners and those relatively untutored in the art of color composition and thereby the quality of the works they produce suffers as a result.
Even for the experienced and those fully aware of these factors, the achievement of this tonally balanced composition has involved tedious premixing of suitable source coloring materials for use in preparing a palette of source colors which may take a considerable length of time in preparing for execution of the painting. In addition, the mixing of these coloring materials has not been on a systematic basis and has more or less relied on the instinct and eye of the artist. There are limitations in this approach in that the toning of the source colors can only be executed within the finite capability of the eye to distinquish tones such that the toning of the source colorings cannot be carried out with a degree by eye examination alone to maximize the effects sought in combining the colors in the composition. That is the distinctions between the colors taken alone is not within the perceptive powers of vision, the variation and effect only being apparent upon juxtaposition in the completed work.
Furthermore, the practice has been to utilize a relatively great number of source colorings, increasing the time factor involved and, if the quantity of paint which is mixed is not sufficient to complete the work, it may be difficult for the artist to mix another quantity of the paint precisely of the same hue and value. The typical artist must also typically have on hand a relatively large number of pigments for mixing source colorings which do not have a systematic relationship to each other requiring the artist to more or less depend upon instinct and eye perception alone in arriving at his source colorings.
Another practical difficulty encountered by beginning and experienced artists alike is the problem of lightening and darkening the coloring material of a given hue by the addition of white or black. It is an extremely difficult process to attempt to properly vary value in a hue which is aggravated by the influence of ambient light on the value exhibited by a given color. That is, under warm light blues will be darkened, for example; under blue light, warm colors will be darkened, so that a mean must be struck in attempting to match a value.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a system for producing a spectral range of tonally related source color groupings or palettes suitable for rendering color compositions influenced by a selected tonal factor.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide in the context of paintings and other similar works a premixed basic set of coloring materials which may be grouped to produce palettes from which may be derived other colors so that all colors so produced will show the influence of the tonal factor without the need for toning by the artist.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a relatively small number of basic or essential coloring materials from which a large number of such palettes may be prepared with tonal influences extending throughout the spectral range.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a systematic arrangement of such basic coloring materials so as to enable the colorist to quickly select those basic coloring materials necessary for providing a palette of a given tonal influence.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a color chart which is in correspondence with the physical organization of coloring materials and which provides an associated color wheel for many of the tonal palettes which may be provided by the basic coloring materials.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a premixed quantity of such basic coloring materials through a graduated range of values, so as to substantially eliminate the need for the use of white or dark coloring to lighten or darken the basic colors and also to further aid in the production of both tonally and value matched mixtures of the basic coloring materials.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a color chart arrangement in which a series of corresponding artist's color wheels corresponding to each tonal palette may be arranged in the same ordered relationship as in an individual artist's color wheel enabling the artist to readily understand the relationship between the various tonal colorings.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a physical storage arrangement which compactly stores the premixed coloring materials in a relationship which aids in the ready selection of these coloring materials in preparing a given selected tonal palette.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide both physical organization and color chart arrangements incorporating the graduated values of basic coloring material to enable value matched mixings of the basic coloring materials to be facilitated so as to greatly reduce the time required in mixing source colors in rendering of a work involving color composition.